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Flexible
Solutions
for
Electronic
Archiving
Perennity
Archiving Edition
Installation and
administration guide
Version 3.00
Copyright E.C. Intl sprl-bvba
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ................................................................................ 2
Introduction ........................................................................................ 6
Perennity Concepts ............................................................................. 7
Understanding Perennity data sources ...................................................7
Understanding Perennity targets......................................................... 11
Understanding Perennity triggers........................................................ 12
Capacity threshold........................................................................ 12
Trigger file .................................................................................. 12
Folder latency .............................................................................. 13
Perennity scanning and scheduling...................................................... 14
Scan Interval ............................................................................... 14
The Perennity Schedule ................................................................. 14
The Perennity workflow explained ....................................................... 15
Using a database and Perennity Finder ................................................ 16
Perennity application examples ........................................................ 17
Compliance recording ....................................................................... 17
Report and log file archiving .............................................................. 17
Personal backup and archiving ........................................................... 17
System requirements ........................................................................ 18
Hardware + operating systems........................................................... 18
Software ......................................................................................... 18
Java VM 1.6................................................................................. 18
Rimage Software Suite .................................................................. 18
MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server or MSDE ............................................ 20
Perennity Finder ........................................................................... 20
Installation ....................................................................................... 21
Installing Perennity........................................................................... 21
Installing the MySQL database engine ................................................. 25
Licensing Perennity ........................................................................... 27
Configuring Perennity ....................................................................... 31
Create a Target................................................................................ 31
Rimage settings ........................................................................... 32
Epson settings ............................................................................. 33
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Configuring Sources.......................................................................... 37
Configuring an Archive folder ............................................................. 38
Source identification and general settings ........................................ 38
Create the archive folder path ........................................................ 40
Output settings ............................................................................ 42
Thumbnail settings ....................................................................... 43
Advanced settings ........................................................................ 45
Triggers ...................................................................................... 47
Capacity threshold........................................................................ 47
Trigger file .................................................................................. 48
Folder latency .............................................................................. 48
None .......................................................................................... 48
Schedule ..................................................................................... 49
Email notification.......................................................................... 50
Database configuration.................................................................. 51
Configuring a Multiple Archive folder ................................................... 54
Source identification and general settings ........................................ 54
Create the Multiple archive folder path ............................................ 56
Output settings ............................................................................ 58
Thumbnail settings ....................................................................... 59
Advanced settings ........................................................................ 61
Triggers ...................................................................................... 63
Capacity threshold........................................................................ 63
Trigger file .................................................................................. 64
Folder latency .............................................................................. 64
None .......................................................................................... 64
Schedule ..................................................................................... 65
Email notification.......................................................................... 66
Database configuration.................................................................. 67
Configuring a CD/DVD Image Folder ................................................... 70
Source identification and general settings ........................................ 70
Define the Image Folder path list .................................................... 71
Output settings ............................................................................ 73
Triggers ...................................................................................... 74
Capacity threshold........................................................................ 75
Trigger file .................................................................................. 76
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Folder latency .............................................................................. 76
None .......................................................................................... 76
Schedule ..................................................................................... 77
Email notification.......................................................................... 78
Database configuration.................................................................. 79
Main settings window........................................................................ 82
Configuring Perennity Finder .............................................................. 84
Using and monitoring Perennity ........................................................ 85
Source window ................................................................................ 85
Logs window.................................................................................... 86
Target window ................................................................................. 86
Start/Stop button ............................................................................. 87
View source settings ......................................................................... 87
Main menu ...................................................................................... 88
File menu .................................................................................... 88
Tools menu ................................................................................. 88
Help menu .................................................................................. 90
Data integrity check tool ................................................................... 91
Perennity at work ............................................................................. 93
Perennity Finder.............................................................................. 100
Browsing the database .................................................................... 100
Querying the database .................................................................... 102
Technical support ............................................................................ 104
Appendix ......................................................................................... 105
Appendix 1 - XML syntax for CD/DVD image folders ............................ 105
Appendix 2 - XML syntax of trigger file .............................................. 107
Appendix 4 – Label Customization .................................................... 110
Appendix 4 – Label Customization .................................................... 110
Appendix 5 – Installing and using MySQL GUI Tools ............................ 112
Appendix 6 – Installing and using Epson TD-Bridge ............................. 122
Appendix 7 – Release notes ............................................................. 128
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Perennity Archive (version 3.00) .................................................... 128
Performance improvement............................................................... 128
Windows Services........................................................................... 128
Incremental archiving improvement .............................................. 128
Encryption................................................................................. 128
Database improvement ............................................................... 128
Support of Epson Autoloader ........................................................ 128
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Introduction
Perennity is a flexible software solution, developed to address diverse archiving
and backup needs. It therefore comes in different flavours: Perennity Archiving
Edition, Perennity Dicom Edition, Perennity Dicom Uploader, Perennity EMC
Centera Edition, Perennity Audio Extractor. Depending upon demand, other
applications and new features will become available in the future.
This manual deals with the Perennity Archiving Edition, a very powerful solution
to automate data archiving. A central concept is the “archive folder”, which can
be defined as ‘a directory on a computer where people or applications store data
that needs to be archived’. Predefined ‘trigger’ mechanisms will launch the
actual archiving (to CD/DVD, NAS, tape…). The triggers can be a capacity
threshold, the submission of a specific file, or folder latency. Scheduling permits
to determine when the actual archiving takes place (e.g. at night).
Perennity Archive Edition offers a lot of flexibility in the configuration of its
archive destinations (‘targets’). Out of the box it supports any Rimage Desktop
or Producer system (or a cluster consisting of several Rimage autoloaders), but
also NAS or robotic libraries (tape, CD/DVD, MO) are potential archive
destinations.
Of course, being able to easily find back the archived information is of the
utmost important. Therefore Perennity can store file metadata (file name, file
date, file size, media ID…) in a database for easy retrieval. The Perennity Finder
application, which comes with the Perennity setup, allows for browsing and
querying the database through a simple, user-friendly interface.
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Perennity Concepts
This part of the manual describes important terms and concepts that you should
understand in order to use Perennity to its full potential. We therefore highly
recommend you to get acquainted with the notions in this section before you
start installing and configuring Perennity.
Perennity basically functions as a sort of ‘connector’ between one or more data
sources (where the data are originally stored), and one or multiple data
targets (the archive storage media). Perennity continuously scans its defined
sources (folder scans) and trigger mechanisms (production rules) and
schedules will determine when the actual archiving will happen.
We will also explain the Perennity workflow concept and discuss the Perennity
Finder (which requires a database implementation).
UNDERSTANDING PERENNITY DATA SOURCES
A ‘Data Source’ is a source from which data will be copied or moved to archive
media (called the ‘target’).
An ‘Archive Folder’ is a directory, located either locally on the PC running the
Perennity Server software or on a remote network volume which will receive the
files/folders that need to be archived to the target device(s). The archiving itself
is a fully automated process, requiring little or no administrative intervention
once the rules have been established.
When Archive folders are located on the Perennity Server, they may be shared
over the network, so that workstation clients or applications running on other
machines can write their data to them in order to get it archived.
Alternatively the source folders can be located on network servers or client PCs.
In such case, there is no need to copy the data to a dedicated archive folder,
but obviously the Perennity Server service account needs read/write or full
control access to these folders.
Perennity automatically spans the archive data over multiple media if it doesn’t
fit on one media. Individual files that exceed media capacity will be split over
several media and the media itself contains the tool to reconstruct the file from
its different fragments.
Hereunder we will discuss the three types of Archive folders supported by
Perennity: the (simple) Archive folder, the Multiple Archive folder and the
CD/DVD Image folder.
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The (simple) Archive Folder will write the data, present in one or more
predefined folders, as soon as it is triggered by a specific event (reaching a
certain capacity, presence of a trigger file, latency). A more detailed discussion
on these triggering mechanisms follows later.
Example: a document scanner drops TIFF files (scanned invoices, airway bills,
…) in a predefined directory (e.g. E:\Invoices). By means of Perennity, these
scanned documents will automatically be transferred to CD each time we have a
total of 700MB TIFF files. The directory collecting the files to be archived and
being permanently watched by Perennity is a Perennity Data Source configured
as an Archive folder.
Fig. 1
– Perennity (simple) Archive folders
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The Multiple Archive folder is an extension of the Archive folder: every
subfolder of a predefined directory will be treated as a distinct archive folder. So
the triggers (reaching a certain capacity, presence of a trigger file, latency)
apply to all individual subfolders, not to the defined root folder.
These subfolders can be in one of two states:
They can be called ‘static’, in that once created they continue to exist and are
constantly subject to change (users/applications can add more data). An
example of such folder could be a user home directory.
They can also be ‘dynamic’. In that case regularly – on the fly - new subfolders
will be created, they will get a number of files and usually not change anymore
afterwards. Perennity can optionally erase these folders after successful
archiving. If not, the folders will remain present and they can be erased
manually.
Example: a digital video supervision application (supermarket, bank, public
transport, …) creates one sub-directory per day containing all video clips and
pictures (mpeg & jpeg files) recorded that day. Every day at midnight, the
content of the current day folder will be backed up to DVD. If the total size of
this folder is higher than the capacity of one DVD, the data will be automatically
spread over multiple discs.
Fig. 2 – Perennity Multiple archive folder
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The CD/DVD Image Folder enables the burning of CD/DVD images created
with third party CD/DVD mastering applications (like for example a Roxio Toast
HFS image, or a video DVD image from a custom video authoring software).
Example: In a prepress company, different network users create HFS CDs and
DVDs using Toast Titanium directly from their Macintosh computer. The
Perennity Client will be installed on every system. One dedicated CD/DVD Image
Folder is configured per user on the Perennity Server. The users create new
projects using Toast and save them as an image file to their respective
Perennity Image Folder. A popup window will then invite the user to specify the
number of copies and what needs to be printed on the CD or DVD.
Create your project with Toast and
save it as CD/DVD image file to a
predefined network folder
Perennity server
CD/ DVD
Autoloader
1
Record &
Print to
CD/ DVD
Cache
3
Specify how many copies must be produced
and what label needs to be printed
2
Fig. 3
– Perennity CD/DVD Image folder
Perennity CD/DVD Image Folder supports the following image file extensions:
.img, .dmg, .iso, .raw and .toast. If you need support for additional extensions,
please contact our technical support department. Also, we only support image
file types supported by the Rimage software.
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UNDERSTANDING PERENNITY TARGETS
A Perennity target is a storage device to which data from a source will be
written (archived). In the current release, out of the box, Perennity Archive
Edition supports Rimage autoloaders equipped with CD/DVD/Blu-Ray writers and
Epson PP-100(N). On request, we can propose implementations with NAS or
robotic libraries (CD/DVD, tape, MO). Furthermore Perennity can be connected
to any backup application that supports scripting.
Perennity offers support for any type of Rimage autoloader, as well Producer as
Desktop. The Rimage Software Suite must be version v6.5.6.1 or later.
Older versions will not work. We recommended using version 8.x which provides
much more flexibility when customizing print templates. The Rimage software
suite may run on the Perennity Server or on a dedicated system.
The Rimage target configuration is intentionally kept very simple, and only the
messaging server connection must be configured. All other parameters are part
of the source configuration, which offers a far-reaching flexibility.
Perennity currently supports one Rimage target, which can of course be a
Rimage cluster consisting of several autoloaders.
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UNDERSTANDING PERENNITY TRIGGERS
A trigger is defined as an event that, when its predefined conditions are fulfilled,
instructs Perennity to launch an archiving process (that is if the folder schedule see later - permits it). All Perennity data sources can be associated with a
trigger. For example, you may want to start writing files from an Archive folder
to CD when you have enough data to fill this CD. In that case, the trigger is a
capacity threshold of for instance 700MB.
You have the choice between three trigger mechanisms:
Capacity threshold
You may decide to launch the actual archiving when the total capacity of the
archive folder reaches a minimum predefined capacity (e.g. start the archiving
process when the total size of the archive folder exceeds 650MB).
By default only full media will be written out. ‘Full media’ is a configurable
parameter (e.g. 650 or 700 MB for a full CD). For long term archiving
applications, it is recommended to limit the usable (full) media capacity to 90%
of the total available capacity since media deterioration over time is most likely
to happen at the outer side of the media (the edge).
Alternatively the writing can be forced for all data present in the archive folder
as soon as the threshold capacity is reached. This will write out all data present
in the archive folder on one or several media, without media fill optimisation.
If the total size of the files/folders to be archived exceeds the maximum
capacity of the CD/DVD, Perennity will simply spread the files over several discs.
Individual files surpassing the media capacity will be split over several media
(e.g. a 10GB video file may be split over 3 DVDs).
When reaching the capacity threshold, Perennity will always make sure that all
files are ready to be archived (e.g. new files still being added, locked files, …).
Trigger file
If you want to have full control over when the recording should start, the trigger
file might be your best option. For instance you might use an archiving
application that generates the data and you want to determine exactly what
data must go on what media (and when). By adding a trigger file to the root of
the Archive folder, Perennity knows it can start burning to media. The trigger file
itself can optionally be included on the media.
If the total size of the files/folders to be archived exceeds the capacity of a
CD/DVD, Perennity will simply spread the files over several discs.
The name of the trigger file must be defined in the source configuration (e.g.
‘start.txt’). You may also use special XML trigger files with a ‘.xml’ extension.
Then, using specific tags, you can overwrite certain parameters defined by
default for this Archive folder (number of copies, print template, values to be
printed, volume name, …) and even add custom metadata (for printing and/or
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writing to the database). Refer to appendix 2 of this manual for a complete
description of the XML trigger file.
Folder latency
Latency time can be defined as the time during which an Archive folder is not
changing anymore, after a folder scan has run.
An example will make this clear: a mini-lab for photo development generates
one folder per film, to which are then copied all the scanned photos for this film.
In normal circumstances this is an uninterrupted process and all files are copied
one after the other to the folder. Once the last file is copied the latency trigger
signals no changes anymore and Perennity processing starts.
It is important to decide upon a ‘correct’ latency time value, since this will
determine when a folder is considered complete and not subject to changes
anymore. Putting the value too low might trigger the archiving when not all files
are present yet. Putting the value too high will result in longer, less efficient
archiving cycles. Specifying a minimum number of files and/or a minimum folder
size allows for fine-tuning the correct triggering.
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PERENNITY SCANNING AND SCHEDULING
Scan Interval
Perennity regularly scans the contents of the active Archive folders to check
whether folders are eligible for archiving (trigger conditions met).
The scan interval parameter (found in the Archive folder general source
settings) determines how often Perennity will scan the Archive folder to check if
conditions are met. A low value will flag more rapidly, but involves more
processing; a high value will check less often but also require less processing.
When Perennity doesn’t run on a dedicated system (for instance on a Rimage
server, being used more or less intensively for other purposes too) it is
advisable to put a higher value.
The Perennity Schedule
Perennity has a built-in scheduling feature, which allows you to determine
during which time frames Perennity production may happen. This permits for
instance to schedule Perennity production at night, freeing the Rimage system
for other jobs at daytime.
The schedule is also very important when no trigger is specified. If in that case
the schedule is enabled, media production will start as soon as the schedule
gets active. It will immediately write out all data found in the archive folder to
one or multiple media. Any data added to the archive folder afterwards will not
be taken into account and will be written the next time the schedule becomes
active.
Finally, when no trigger is specified and the schedule is not enabled, the
archiving process must be manually forced.
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THE PERENNITY WORKFLOW EXPLAINED
Now that all Perennity concepts should be clear to you from the previous
paragraphs, it is time to have a look at the overall picture. In other words, what
is happening when, and why?
According to the scan settings discussed earlier, Perennity will at regular
intervals check its active Archive folders against the configured triggers. For
eligible folders (triggering criteria met) the archiving will start immediately if the
folder schedule permits it. If not, the processing for these folders will only start
during a later scan when both conditions are met (triggered and schedule
active).
When a Perennity archiving process has been successfully completed, the files
and folders of the Archive folder can be automatically deleted, they can be left
in the folder, or they can optionally be moved to another destination. If you
choose to delete the files/folders after archiving, Perennity will proceed to the
deletion only after receiving the confirmation from the Rimage Production Server
that the CD/DVD recording has been successful.
If you choose to keep the original files/folders in the Archive folder after they
have been recorded to CD/DVD, Perennity will reset the archive bit of these files
and folders to exclude them from further processing. Only new files, added to
the Archive folder after the previous archive cycle, will be considered.
Moving the files/folders to another destination may be interesting in cases
where the data should be kept online or nearline for fast access, while a
CD/DVD copy is used for backup, long-term archiving or legal purposes.
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USING A DATABASE AND PERENNITY FINDER
It is of course very convenient to be able to archive or backup your data to offline media, but after recording hundreds of media how find out where is what
file? This is where the Perennity database and the Finder come in.
Perennity indeed offers the possibility to store all file metadata in a database,
which can then be interrogated through the Perennity Finder application. The
Finder can be installed as part of the Perennity Server installation, or it can also
be installed separately, for instance on client PCs.
The Perennity Finder application offers two possible ways to consult the
database:
By browsing the contents of all archived folders: the Finder presents the
same folder structures as they were originally present in the Archive folders, so
this is a very easy way to find back files in a well structured folder organisation.
By launching queries using one or a combination of several criteria: file name,
content (when using the full-text indexing option), date, size, folder names, …
This can be interesting to search for files when you know (part of) the file
name/content or when you want to search for files in a specific time range.
Please consult the chapter Perennity Finder in this manual for concrete
instructions on the use of the Finder.
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Perennity application examples
As you will probably have noticed, Perennity is a very flexible software solution,
which can be deployed to answer several types of archiving, backup and
CD/DVD production needs.
The following cases give some practical examples on how Perennity can fit your
particular needs.
COMPLIANCE RECORDING
Customers in audio/video broadcasting are using Perennity for compliance
recording. All radio and TV emissions are saved to disk first in a digital format
(WMA, MP3, mpeg or other) and by defining the destination folder(s) as
Perennity Archive folder(s), the burning to DVD is triggered automatically by the
amount of data present in the Archive folder. As soon as 4,3 GB is present, 2 or
more DVDs are written: a master and one or more backups that will often be
stored off-site. After successful recording, the files are automatically removed
from the Archive folder.
REPORT AND LOG FILE ARCHIVING
Lots of companies and institutions have to keep several types of log files and
reports for legal purposes. They must be stored on WORM (write once read
many) type media, to guarantee their non-modifiability over time.
CD and DVD are thus perfectly suited for storing this kind of information, since
they have this WORM character and are legally accepted.
Perennity permits to easily automate these types of archive processes. By
defining Archive folders where the data will be output by the generating
application or an archiving routine, the data will be automatically picked up by
Perennity and burned to media.
Perennity offers a far-reaching flexibility in determining the rules for media
creation: for instance the archiving can happen every day at a specified time, it
can be based on the capacity of the media, or it can be triggered by the
presence of a special file.
PERSONAL BACKUP AND ARCHIVING
Several customers use Perennity to allow their users to archive data on CD or
DVD through Personal Archive Folders. For instance people might want to
regularly backup or archive the contents of their My Documents folder, or their
Outlook PST files.
In this kind of application, one central CD/DVD production system will deal with
the data archiving, and there is no need to have local CD/DVD writers and
recording software installed on every desktop.
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System requirements
HARDWARE + OPERATING SYSTEMS
Minimum Intel Pentium IV 2,4Ghz or equivalent processor
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional or Server, XP Professional
Microsoft Windows 2003
Minimum 2 GB RAM
SOFTWARE
Java VM 1.6
Perennity has been developed in JAVA and it needs a JAVA Virtual Machine (VM)
to function. As the actual Perennity build has been developed with the JAVA SDK
1.6, it is highly recommended to use at least this VM version.
Rimage Software Suite
The Rimage Software Suite should be at least version 6.5.6. Older versions will
not work. We recommended to use version 8.x providing much more flexibility
when customizing print templates.
Perennity can be installed on the workstation where the Rimage Software Suite
runs, or it can be installed on a different machine. The Rimage software suite
must be installed in network mode, and the Perennity settings should reflect the
correct Rimage configuration. When in doubt, please check with your Rimage
administrator.
When Archive Folders are created on a network server or client PC, make sure
they are accessible from the Perennity server as well as from the Rimage
Control Center (the Windows PC to which the Rimage system is physically
connected). In that case, they must be shared with read/write or full control
access for the logged on user. For systems that are part of a workgroup, not a
domain, you should create a user with identical name and password on both
machines.
Pay attention that the Rimage Imaging Server is running as a Windows service.
As result you must grant the current user defined for this service with full
control access too.
The share permissions have to be either read/write or full control. As Perennity
needs to be able to switch the archive bit of files for its internal functioning, it
has to be allowed to do so. When Perennity is configured to delete the original
files after successfully burning them, it must have full control permissions. Since
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Perennity runs with the logged on user account, it is this user that should have
the appropriate rights.
More information on Rimage networking issues can be found in the Rimage
Advanced Administrator Guide.
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MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server or MSDE
Perennity can run with or without a database. If you choose to use a database
to store file metadata (file name, file size, file date, media ID, …) you should
plan to have an installation of MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server or MSDE.
MySQL Server v5.1 is included on your Perennity software CD. You can also use
an existing MySQL server if desired, but please note that we currently only
support v5 and v5.1. Please refer to the Perennity configuration section for more
detailed instructions on how to work with the MySQL database.
When using MySQL, and if the MySQL instance is not installed locally on the
Perennity server, the MySQL administrator must configure the database security
settings accordingly.
Since version 2.1, Perennity also supports MS SQL Server. You should have at
least SQL Server 2000 SP3, which support connections with JAVA based
programs.
We don’t discuss the installation and usage of MS SQL Server in this manual.
Those who want to use one of these database engines should be familiar with
their functioning and administration.
Perennity Finder
When running Perennity with a database to store file metadata, a search tool called Perennity Finder - can be used to query the database. The Perennity
Finder will be automatically installed with Perennity Archive.
The Finder allows performing simple queries using one or several search criteria,
and it also offers a browsing functionality presenting the original file system
structure (including all folders and subfolders) from the archive folders.
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Installation
INSTALLING PERENNITY
Now that you are acquainted with the concepts behind Perennity, you can begin
the installation. Be sure to log on with a local administrator account (or at least
power user) to have the necessary Windows rights. Run
PerennityArchive_v3.00_bxxx.exe (where xxx is the number of the build) from
the installation CD or the downloadable installation package from our web site
(http://www.perennitysoft.com/download.asp). The installation wizard will guide
you through the installation process.
Fig. 4
– Installation wizard start-up
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Fig. 5
– Selecting the installation path
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Fig. 6
– Installation in progress
Fig. 7
– Perennity installation finished
We also provide several predefined print labels with Perennity. They can be
found in the Perennity installation subdirectory (system drive\Program
Files\Perennity\Perennity Archive\Server\labels). There is one default label per
printer type (480i, Everest, …). It is recommended to make a copy of these
labels to the Rimage Control Center in the shared \Rimage\Labels folder and to
use these copies for your archive folders. You can of course later modify these
standard labels to personalize them.
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That’s it for the installation. Perennity is now ready to be licensed and
configured.
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INSTALLING THE MYSQL DATABASE ENGINE
If you want to store the metadata (file name, file date, files size, media ID) of
all archived files for later retrieval through the Perennity Finder utility, you can
consider using the included MySQL database with Perennity. Alternatively you
can also use an existing MySQL installation, or Microsoft SQL Server (or MSDE).
We only discuss the installation of MySQL on the Perennity machine. Please
consult your database administrator for other implementations.
F Version 5.1.31 of MySQL is available in the full Perennity installation package
(CD or downloaded zip file). Go to the Tools > MYSQL > MySQL 5.1 Server
v5.1.31 folder. It can also be downloaded from our web site (download).
F Run the mysql-essential-5.1.31-win32.exe program. Although it should work,
for support purposes we do not recommend using any other version of MySQL
with Perennity.
Strictly apply the following procedure:
1. Setup Type: Typical. Click on ‘Next’.
2. Click on ‘Install’.
3. Advertising: click twice ‘Next’.
4. Setup wizard: enable the ‘Configure the MySQL Server now’ and click on
‘Finish’.
5. Welcome screen: click on ‘Next’.
6. Configuration type: select ‘Detailed configuration’ and click on ‘Next’.
7. Server type: select ‘Server Machine’ and click on ‘Next’.
8. Database usage: select ‘Multifunctional Database’ and click on ‘Next’.
9. InnoDB datafile: keep default settings (C: - Installation Path) and click on
‘Next’.
10. Number of concurrent connections: select ‘Decision Support’ and click on
‘Next’.
11. Networking options: select ‘Enable TCP/IP Networking’, port 3306 and
enable the ‘Add firewall exception for this port’ option. Also enable the
‘Enable Strict Mode’ option and click on ‘Next’.
12. Character set: select the ‘Standard Character Set’ option and click on ‘Next’.
It may be required to select the ‘Best Support for Multilingualism’ option
depending on the language you are using.
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13. Windows options: enable the ‘Install As Windows Service’. Keep the default
‘MySQL’ as Service Name. Enable also the ‘Launch the MySQL Server
automatically’ and ‘Include Bin Directory in Windows PATH’ options. Then
click on ‘Next’.
14. Security options: FIRST enable the ‘Create An Anonymous Account’ option.
THEN disable the ‘Modify Security Settings’ option and click on ‘Next’.
15. Click on ‘Execute’
16. Make sure that the ‘Prepare configuration’, ‘Write configuration file’ and the
‘Start service’ steps have been processed. Click on ‘Finish’.
F
Check if the MySQL service is well started. If the installer window tells you
there was a problem starting the service, please check the Windows services
console. If the MySQL service is started you may disregard the error and
continue with the installation. If however the service cannot be started, you
should usually look for port conflicts.
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Licensing Perennity
Start the “Perennity Archive” application using the link in the Start > All
Programs > Perennity menu. A shortcut is also available on the Desktop.
Moreover Perennity will be automatically launched every time your start the
computer it runs on, since it has been added to the “Startup” program group
during the installation process.
The Perennity Archive server needs a license key in order to run. To access the
Perennity registration window from within Perennity, open the ‘Help’ menu and
select ‘Register’.
The license code (activation key) is based on the following elements:
- The hardware address (MAC) of the Perennity PC network adapter. If you
have multiple network adapters only 1 will be used.
- A unique serial number. This is a six digit hexadecimal number (e.g. a63d67)
printed on the installation CD. When downloading a demo version from the web,
the serial number will be provided in the e-mail containing the download
instructions.
Several licenses are available. At present, there are two types:
Full-text indexing of the content of the text based files (pdf, doc, xls, txt, xml
and eml).
Encryption: allows protecting the content of the archived media with .
- Annual Maintenance Program: if purchased, you are eligible for updates
and upgrades.
- An expiration date. If you have bought an official Perennity license, it will
never expire. However, if you request a demo license, it will run until the
expiration date.
Without a valid license, Perennity will start in ‘trial mode’. Trial mode allows you
to evaluate Perennity by trying out its features and functionalities for a limited
period of time. You can start Perennity in trial mode an unlimited number of
times.
To effectively register Perennity, open the web link ‘Online registration’ at the
bottom of the registration screen. This will open the registration web page on
our Perennitysoft server. If you have no Internet access on the Perennity
workstation, you can copy the link and open it from another PC. This procedure
is fully automated and you should get your license key in minutes.
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Alternatively you can send an e-mail containing the serial number and the MAC
address of one of your network adapters to [email protected]. You will
normally get back the activation key within the next 24 hours.
Fig. 8
– Perennity licensing
When receiving your license key request (online or via email), your order will be
checked and we will send you the corresponding license by email. Please copy
the license key into the licensing window of Perennity Archive and click on
‘Update’ to activate the license.
Fig. 9
– Perennity licensed
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You notice easily that the serial number is now present and that the title of the
registration window changed from ‘Trial mode’ to ‘Licensed’.
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The license key can be requested prior to the installation. Use the
“ipconfig /all” command from a command prompt in order to obtain a list of the
MAC addresses (‘Physical Address’) of your network adapters. If multiple
adapters are present, only one MAC address is needed.
Fig. 10 – Physical address using the “ipconfig” command
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Configuring Perennity
The first time you start up, Perennity will automatically open the settings
window so you can create and define a target, the working folder and then the
sources.
CREATE A TARGET
The first step is to configure a Target that in this case will be a Rimage CD/DVD
production system (autoloader). Perennity supports any type of network able
Rimage system (Desktop or Producer range). You can even simulate the
presence of a Rimage unit (which will create folders on hard disk containing the
data that would otherwise be recorded to CD or DVD).
To open the target manager, please click on the ‘Manage’ button from the
settings window.
Fig. 11 – Perennity target window
As mentioned in the system requirements, the Rimage Software Suite should be
at least version 6.5.6. The new version 8.x is now supported.
Let’s configure the Rimage system as a target by clicking the “Add” button. This
will open a new window where you select Rimage as the type and then enter a
name for the target. This name can be maximum 20 characters in length. Try to
use a name that clearly identifies the Target. You also need to specify the
connection parameters for the Rimage Messaging Server. Enter its host name
(computer name) or IP address. The Messaging Server port will by default
always be 4664. Please consult your Rimage administrator if you don’t know the
correct settings.
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Rimage settings
Fig. 12 – Rimage configuration
The name of the target may only contain the following characters: A-Z, a-z,
space, _ and -. Never use other, special characters like é, è, &, …
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Epson settings
As Perennity Archive is able to work with Epson PP-100 autoloader (using the
TD-Bridge API), you can define a target for this robot too.
The Epson TD-Bridge is required in order to interface Perennity with the Epson
PP-100 autoloader. Please refer to Appendix XX for installation and
configuration of TD-Bridge.
Select the ‘Epson’ option as type, give a Target Name to clearly identify the
Target. Then select the working folder of TD-Bridge (by default:
systemdrive\EPSON\TDBridge\Orders).
Clicking the ‘Test connection’ button tests the connection to the Epson PP-100.
Fig. 13 – Epson configuration
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If you want to just test or demonstrate Perennity without having an autoloader,
you can select the “Virtual Autoloader” option. You just have then to specify a
path to a local directory or network volume. Perennity will create one subdirectory per CD or DVD, having the same volume name that would be assigned
to the CD/DVD.
Fig. 14 – Virtual Autoloader configuration
Fig. 15 – Target configured
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When you click on “Ok” after completing the Target setup you will come back to
the main settings window. From there you have to select the target you want to
use form the target list
.
Fig. 16 – Selecting the target to be used
If your target is a Rimage system but installed on a different computer than
Perennity, you must define the working folder on the Rimage PC using UNC
path.
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Fig. 17 – Changing the Working Folder
Once this is done, you can start creating Sources.
To do so, click on ‘Add’ from the Source part of the settings main screen.
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CONFIGURING SOURCES
As seen earlier Perennity Archive Edition supports three source types: the
(simple) Archive folder, the Multiple Archive folder and the CD/DVD image
folder.
Fig. 18 – Configuring the first Perennity source
Click on the “Add” button to create a new source, “Edit” to modify the settings
for an existing source or “Remove” to delete a source.
Fig. 19 Under the next headings, we will discuss the setup and configuration for the
three different source types.
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CONFIGURING AN ARCHIVE FOLDER
Source identification and general settings
First select the “Archive folder” option in the Type drop-down list.
Fig. 20 – Add source tab
Each source must be given a distinctive name (max. 20 chars.) to clearly
identify it. The description field can be used to enter additional information.
The name of the source can only contain the following characters: A-Z, a-z, _
and -. Do not use other, special characters like é, è, &, … or spaces.
The archive policy can be ‘Incremental’ or ‘Full’. Incremental, which is the
default policy, will only archive files that have not yet been archived before. A
full archival will record all files present in the archive folder, regardless of the
archive bit status.. If you choose to delete files after recording, full or
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incremental doesn’t matter, since the outcome will be the same. The
incremental process needs the use of a database. Optionally you can also ask
to reset the archive bit of the files but this can take a long time!
Sources can be in one of three different states: enabled, disabled or obsolete.
Use the drop-down arrow to alter the state. Unlike targets, multiple sources
can be enabled and thus active concurrently.
The scan interval determines how often Perennity will scan the Archive folder
to check if the trigger conditions are met. A low value will flag more rapidly,
but involves more processing; a high value will check less often but also
require less processing. When Perennity doesn’t run on a dedicated system
(for instance on a Rimage server, being used intensively for other purposes
too) it is advised to put a higher value here.
When selecting the “Automatically start” option, Perennity will start up the
Archive folder as soon as the Perennity application is launched. Otherwise,
you will need to start the processing manually.
Selecting “Process chronologically” allows for sorting the files and folders by
creation date/time (FIFO = First In First Out). Older files will be recorded
before newer ones.
If after successful recording you want all archived files to be copied to another
destination (on the local server or to a share), select the option “Copy files
after successful recording to” and type the path or browse to select it.
Files can be automatically deleted when the recording has been successful by
checking the “Delete files after successful recording” option. If not, they will
stay present in the archive folder
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Create the archive folder path
Click “Next” to continue to the next screen.
Fig. 21 – Select source path
In this window you may enter the path for this source.
Click on the browse button and select a directory that will act as a Perennity
Archive folder. Then confirm by clicking on “Choose” and the path will appear in
the path list.
If Perennity runs on the same machine as the Rimage Software Suite
(Production, Imaging and Messaging servers), you may select local directories
(e.g. C:\Production logs\). You can then share these folders to the network,
which will make them accessible for users or applications to drop their files to be
archived.
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If Perennity runs on another machine than the Rimage Software Suite or if your
archive folder is created on different systems (server or client workstations),
you must always use UNC paths (browse through My Network Places). It is
mandatory that both Perennity and the Rimage Imaging server can access the
files and folders to be archived (with the logged on user account). Be sure to
provide read/write or full control access to the Perennity Archive folders and
sub-folders.
Please make sure you have the necessary rights to access these shares before
trying to add them to your configuration, otherwise you will not be successful in
doing so.
You can add some additional files and folders to every disc (e.g. Acrobat Reader,
picture viewer, …).
You may also exclude system files, hidden files and/or read-only files.
When finished, click the “Next” button.
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Output settings
The following screen will ask you to select a target to make an association with.
You can only link to one target, even if multiple exist.
Under the “Output settings” tab you can define all settings with respect to the
imaging and production of your CDs and DVDs.
Fig. 22 – Enter Rimage settings
In most cases, it will probably be sufficient to configure the General settings,
which include:
The Media type: CD-R, DVD-R, DVD-R Dual Layer (DVDR-DL), Blu-Ray and
Blu-Ray Dual Layer. Since Rimage also supports CD-RW, DVD-RW and
DVD+R(W) you may of course also use one of these media types. For archiving
however we strongly recommend CD-R or DVD-R, since these media offer the
best guarantees for long-term storage. For backup you might envisage using
RW media (remember that via the Rimage software you cannot erase these).
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Selecting ‘Auto Select’ will make Perennity choosing the media type that fits the
best the size of the data that will be archived.
The Number of copies
The Label file: select the correct label template for your type of printer
(Everest, Prism, 480i, Epson). This can be the standard label template provided
with Perennity, or a custom label template of your own. Please consult appendix
4 if you want to find out how to make your own personalized Perennity labels.
Perennity will open the default label directory it created at installation time, but
you can also browse to another location to choose a label. If Perennity is not
installed on the Rimage Control Center, you will need to use a UNC path to the
label. Also make sure that the Rimage Production Server can access and open
the label file. When the files to be recorded are pictures, you have the option to
also print thumbnails. This is very convenient to visually identify the media.
Default labels with the suffix “_thumbnails” allow for printing such thumbnails.
The CD/DVD Volume name: it is composed of a prefix (Source Name, Login,
Folder Name or a custom text), a media ID or current date and a suffix (Target
Name, Login, Folder Name or a custom text), divided by underscores. The prefix
and/or suffix fields can be edited to input a custom text or they can be emptied.
Also, the number of digits of the media ID can be defined (5, 05, 005, 0005…).
You will get an example of what the volume name will look like.
Thumbnail settings
The ‘Thumbnails’ settings define what pictures will be printed on the media.
Supported pictures are jpeg (.jpeg or .jpg), tiff (.tif or .tiff), png or bmp. Gif
pictures are not supported.
Be sure to use a template that allows for printing thumbnails. Several default
templates are available (file name ends in “_thumbnail”).
Fig. 23 – Thumbnail print settings
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You may select to use the pictures located in:
•
The root of the archive folder.
•
All pictures located in sub-directories, up to a specified folder depth.
•
Pictures located in a specific sub-directory.
These options can be combined.
The number of pictures to be printed is defined by the used CD Designer
template. You can modify it to suit your needs.
You may also decide what pictures will be printed:
•
Every x pictures (e.g. every 5 pictures: will print pictures 5, 10, 15, …)
•
Every x percent (e.g. every 20% for a total of 50 pictures; this will
print pictures 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50)
Fig. 24 Example of CD printed with thumbnails
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Advanced settings
There are two sections in the advanced settings window: Media Content and
Media Format.
Fig. 25 – Advanced media settings
Under Media Content settings you can specify:
Add XML info file to media: this file contains a description of what is on the
media (complete file listing with metadata, label information…).
Compute checksum: a checksum will be calculated and added to the XML info
file for every file on the media, allowing for later data integrity checks. You can
choose between CRC32, MD5 and SHA checksum algorithms.
File spanning: when activating this option files that do not fit on a media
(max. authorized capacity) will be split over several media. File splitting
information will be stored in the XML info file and a checksum will always be
calculated to assure data integrity. The Perennity File Restore utility should be
used to re-create split files.
Under Media Format settings you can specify:
Encoding format: Perennity supports ISO level 1, ISO level 2 (default) and
UDF (1.02, 1.5 and 1.5 Unicode). You may also choose to include the Microsoft
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specific Joliet extensions. The Audio CD format is also supported (CD-R only)
if you have WAV or MP3 music files as source data. And also WMA files are
supported with Rimage Software Suite version 7. Consult your Rimage manual
for more information about these formats.
Bad files ignored: you can ask to ignore all bad files that Perennity would
meet during the archiving process. This is useful to ensure the readability of
your media.
Use of Joliet extensions: .
Enforce ISO folder depth limit: if this option is checked, the maximum folder
depth accepted will be of 8 levels (ISO specification). Default: not enforced.
Next media ID: this field shows the media ID for the next media to be
produced and it is updated continuously. You can change its value to restart the
numbering.
Clicking “Next” opens the Trigger window.
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Triggers
As discussed in the concepts section of this manual, Perennity supports three
triggering mechanism (capacity threshold, trigger file and folder latency). A
fourth special case is ‘None’, which behaviour depends on whether or not a
schedule is active. For more information please review the concepts section.
Fig. 26 – Triggering events
Capacity threshold
Every time the threshold value (in MB) is reached, the recording process will
be started. Although this value can correspond with the actual (or usable)
media size, it doesn’t have to.
By default ‘always fill CD/DVD media’ is active, meaning that only the data
that completely fits on one or more media will be written out. Any additional
data that doesn’t yet fill up a complete media will not be included and will wait
for the next time the threshold capacity will be reached.
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Trigger file
Enter the name for the trigger file, which must be copied to the root of the
Archive folder to start its processing. Optionally you can add the trigger file to
the media. You may also specify a file extension as trigger (e.g. *.arc).
Folder latency
Specify a latency time in seconds. When a folder scan is performed and no more
changes are detected in the folder after applying the latency time, the recording
will start. You can however specify that a minimum number of files and/or a
minimum capacity must be present in the folder.
None
When a schedule is enabled (next step), the recording of all data present in the
Archive folder will start when the schedule gets active. Any data added later
(even when the schedule is still running) will wait for the next schedule
activation. Without scheduling, the recording must be manually forced from the
main Perennity window.
Select “Next” to go to the “Schedule” tab.
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Schedule
Scheduling defines the timeframe during which recording may happen. So if the
schedule is only active between 19:00h and 06:00h the recording will not
happen during working hours, only at night (freeing the Rimage system for
other tasks at daytime). Whether data will be recorded or not depends entirely
upon the trigger values. Only when ‘None’ is the selected trigger, all data
present in the Archive folder at the beginning of the activation of the schedule
(e.g. every day at 19:00h) will be recorded unconditionally. Any data added
afterwards, even when the schedule is still active, will wait for the next
activation (e.g. the next day).
Fig. 27 – Activating the schedule
Clicking “Next” brings you to the Email notification window.
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Email notification
By activating the email notification functionality, one or multiple recipients can
receive an email in any of the following cases:
•
A job is completed
•
The Rimage Imaging server has generated an error
•
Connection problems with the Rimage Messaging server
•
Perennity errors
The only prerequisite to use email notification is to have access to a valid SMTP
server.
Fig. 28 Email notification configuration
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Enter a valid SMTP host (DNS or IP address) and the email address that
Perennity will use to send its emails. If the SMTP server requires authentication,
enter the login and password.
Add one or multiple email addresses. You can test the email functionality by
selecting one or more recipients and clicking on the “Test” button.
You may also define per user what kind of messages they should get: job
completion notifications, errors with Rimage Imaging/Messaging and/or
Perennity errors.
Database configuration
Clicking “Next” brings you to the database window. Enable the database if you
want to use it for the current Archive folder and configure it correctly (make
sure that your database setup is correct).
Fig. 29 – Perennity database configuration
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First select the type of database you want to use (SQL server type): MySQL or
Microsoft SQL Server. Since MSDE is a feature-limited version of SQL Server,
select SQLServer if you want to use MSDE. Please note that when we will talk
about SQL Server hereunder, this also refers to MSDE.
By ticking the “Index file content” option, Perennity will store all different
keywords of text documents (pdf, doc, xls, txt, xml and eml) in the Perennity
database. This will allow searching on the content of the files using the
Perennity Finder tool.
You can create a separate database per Archive folder or use the same database
for all Archive folders (which is not recommended if you want to use the Finder
AND security is an issue). When MySQL runs on the Perennity server enter user
name ‘user’ without a password, otherwise check with your database
administrator. Always check with your database administrator when using SQL
Server.
The Perennity database user must have the right to create a new database,
create tables, modify the structure and insert data.
By default, all local users can access all MySQL databases. Of course it is
possible to restrict access to specific authorized users.
When the “Dump database” checkbox is selected, Perennity makes an up-todate backup copy (including the current CD/DVD) of the complete MySQL
database on each media being produced. In this way there is no need to
manually backup the database, since the last produced media will always
contain the latest database contents. This option is not available for SQL Server
(backups must be performed by the database administrator).
Click on the “Check database” button. If the database configuration is correct,
you will have a message saying that the connection to the database was
successfully established.If the database does not exist, it will be created. If one
of the parameters is not valid, you will be warned.
Fig. 30 – Database configuration not correct
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Fig. 31 - Confirmation of database creation
Click on Yes. The structure will be modified without data loss. However, it is
highly recommended to backup the database prior to any update or
modification.
From now on, all archival operations for this archive folder will be logged into
the just configured MySQL or SQL Server database.
In case of a power failure or interruption of an archiving process of Perennity, it
is possible that the Perennity contains records related to files that have not be
burned to CD or DVD. You should then clean the database by clicking on the
“Clean database” button. It will remove all unnecessary records.
Your Perennity Archive folder is now ready to be used.
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CONFIGURING A MULTIPLE ARCHIVE FOLDER
Source identification and general settings
The Multiple Archive folder allows you to define a folder, for which each
subfolder will be considered to be an Archive folder (so not the root folder
itself). These subfolders can be dynamically created or deleted as needed,
without having to reconfigure Perennity.
First select the “Multiple Archive folder” option in the Type drop-down list.
Fig. 32 – Multiple archive folder
Each source must be given a distinctive name (max. 20 chars.) to clearly
identify it. The description field can be used to enter additional information.
The name of the source can only contain the following characters: A-Z, a-z, _
and -. Do not use other, special characters like é, è, &, … or spaces.
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The archive policy can be ‘Incremental’ or ‘Full’. Incremental, which is the
default policy, will only archive files that have not yet been archived before. A
full archival will record all files present in the archive folder, regardless of the
archive bit status. If you choose to delete files after recording, full or
incremental doesn’t matter, since the outcome will be the same.
The incremental process needs the use of a database. Optionally you can also
ask to reset the archive bit of the files but this can take a long time!
Sources can be in one of three different states: enabled, disabled or obsolete.
Use the drop-down arrow to alter the state. Unlike Rimage targets, multiple
sources can be enabled and thus active concurrently.
The scan interval determines how often Perennity will scan the Archive folder
to check if the trigger conditions are met. A low value will flag more rapidly,
but involves more processing; a high value will check less often but also
require less processing. When Perennity doesn’t run on a dedicated system
(for instance on a Rimage server, being used intensively for other purposes
too) it is advised to put a higher value here.
When selecting the “Automatically start” option, Perennity will start up the
Archive folder as soon as the Perennity application is launched. Otherwise,
you will need to start the processing manually.
Selecting “Process chronologically” allows for sorting the files and folders by
creation date/time (FIFO = First In First Out). Older files will be recorded
before newer ones.
If after successful recording you want all archived files to be copied to another
destination (on the local server or to a share), select the option “Copy files
after successful recording to” and type the path or browse to select it.
Files can be automatically deleted when the recording has been successful by
checking the “Delete files after successful recording” option. If not, they will
stay present in the archive folder
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Create the Multiple archive folder path
Click “Next” to continue to the next screen.
Fig. 33 – Select source path
In this window you may enter the path for this source.
Click on the browse button and select a directory that will act as a Perennity
Multiple Archive folder. Then confirm by clicking on “Choose” and the path will
appear in the path list.
If Perennity runs on the same machine as the Rimage Software Suite
(Production, Imaging and Messaging servers), you may select local directories
(e.g. C:\Production logs\). You can then share these folders to the network,
which will make them accessible for users or applications to drop their files to be
archived.
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If Perennity runs on another machine than the Rimage Software Suite or if your
multiple archive folder is created on different systems (server or client
workstations), you must always use UNC paths (browse through My Network
Places). It is mandatory that both Perennity and the Rimage Imaging server can
access the files and folders to be archived (with the logged on user account). Be
sure to provide read/write or full control access to the Perennity Archive folders
and sub-folders.
Please make sure you have the necessary rights to access these shares before
trying to add them to your configuration, otherwise you will not be successful in
doing so.
You can add some additional files and folders to every disc (e.g. Acrobat Reader,
picture viewer, …).
You may also exclude system files, hidden files and/or read-only files.
When finished, click the “Next” button.
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Output settings
The following screen will ask you to select a target to make an association with.
You can only link to one target, even if multiple exist.
Under the “Output settings” tab you can define all settings with respect to the
imaging and production of your CDs and DVDs.
Fig. 34 – Enter Output settings
In most cases, it will probably be sufficient to configure the General settings,
which include:
The Media type: CD-R, DVD-R, DVD-R Dual Layer (DVDR-DL), Blu-Ray and
Blu-Ray Dual Layer. Since Rimage also supports CD-RW, DVD-RW and
DVD+R(W) you may of course also use one of these media types. For archiving
however we strongly recommend CD-R or DVD-R, since these media offer the
best guarantees for long-term storage. For backup you might envisage using
RW media (remember that via the Rimage software you cannot erase these).
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Selecting ‘Auto Select’ will make Perennity choosing the media type that fits the
best the size of the data that will be archived.
The Number of copies
The Label file: select the correct label template for your type of printer
(Everest, Prism, 480i, Epson). This can be the standard label template provided
with Perennity, or a custom label template of your own. Please consult appendix
4 if you want to find out how to make your own personalized Perennity labels.
Perennity will open the default label directory it created at installation time, but
you can also browse to another location to choose a label. If Perennity is not
installed on the Rimage Control Center, you will need to use a UNC path to the
label. Also make sure that the Rimage Production Server can access and open
the label file. When the files to be recorded are pictures, you have the option to
also print thumbnails. This is very convenient to visually identify the media.
Default labels with the suffix “_thumbnails” allow for printing such thumbnails.
The CD/DVD Volume name: it is composed of a prefix (Source Name, Login,
Folder Name or a custom text), a media ID or current date and a suffix (Target
Name, Login, Folder Name or a custom text), divided by underscores. The prefix
and/or suffix fields can be edited to input a custom text or they can be emptied.
Also, the number of digits of the media ID can be defined (5, 05, 005, 0005…).
You will get an example of what the volume name will look like.
Thumbnail settings
The ‘Thumbnails’ settings define what pictures will be printed on the media.
Supported pictures are jpeg (.jpeg or .jpg), tiff (.tif or .tiff), png or bmp. Gif
pictures are not supported.
Be sure to use a template that allows for printing thumbnails. Several default
templates are available (file name ends in “_thumbnail”).
Fig. 35 – Thumbnail print settings
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You may select to use the pictures located in:
•
The root of the archive folder.
•
All pictures located in sub-directories, up to a specified folder depth.
•
Pictures located in a specific sub-directory.
These options can be combined.
The number of pictures to be printed is defined by the used CD Designer
template. You can modify it to suit your needs.
You may also decide what pictures will be printed:
•
Every x pictures (e.g. every 5 pictures: will print pictures 5, 10, 15, …)
•
Every x percent (e.g. every 20% for a total of 50 pictures; this will
print pictures 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50)
Fig. 36 Example of CD printed with thumbnails
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Advanced settings
There are two sections in the advanced settings window: Media Content and
Media Format.
Fig. 37 – Advanced media settings
Under Media Content settings you can specify:
Add XML info file to media: this file contains a description of what is on the
media (complete file listing with metadata, label information…).
Compute checksum: a checksum will be calculated and added to the XML info
file for every file on the media, allowing for later data integrity checks. You can
choose between CRC32, MD5 and SHA checksum algorithms.
File spanning: when activating this option files that do not fit on a media
(max. authorized capacity) will be split over several media. File splitting
information will be stored in the XML info file and a checksum will always be
calculated to assure data integrity. The Perennity File Restore utility should be
used to re-create split files.
Under Media Format settings you can specify:
Encoding format: Perennity supports ISO level 1, ISO level 2 (default) and
UDF (1.02, 1.5 and 1.5 Unicode). You may also choose to include the Microsoft
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specific Joliet extensions. The Audio CD format is also supported (CD-R only)
if you have WAV or MP3 music files as source data. And also WMA files are
supported with Rimage Software Suite version 7. Consult your Rimage manual
for more information about these formats.
Bad files ignored: you can ask to ignore all bad files that Perennity would
meet during the archiving process. This is useful to ensure the readability of
your media.
Use of Joliet extensions: .
Enforce ISO folder depth limit: if this option is checked, the maximum folder
depth accepted will be of 8 levels (ISO specification). Default: not enforced.
Next media ID: this field shows the media ID for the next media to be
produced and it is updated continuously. You can change its value to restart the
numbering.
Clicking “Next” opens the Trigger window.
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Triggers
As discussed in the concepts section of this manual, Perennity supports three
triggering mechanism (capacity threshold, trigger file and folder latency). A
fourth special case is ‘None’, which behaviour depends on whether or not a
schedule is active. For more information please review the concepts section.
Fig. 38 – Triggering events
Capacity threshold
Every time the threshold value (in MB) is reached, the recording process will
be started. Although this value can correspond with the actual (or usable)
media size, it doesn’t have to.
By default ‘always fill CD/DVD media’ is active, meaning that only the data
that completely fits on one or more media will be written out. Any additional
data that doesn’t yet fill up a complete media will not be included and will wait
for the next time the threshold capacity will be reached.
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Trigger file
Enter the name for the trigger file, that must be copied to the root of the
Archive folder to start its processing. Optionally you can add the trigger file to
the media. You may also specify a file extension as trigger (e.g. *.arc).
Folder latency
Specify a latency time in seconds. When a folder scan is performed and no more
changes are detected in the folder after applying the latency time, the recording
will start. You can however specify that a minimum number of files and/or a
minimum capacity must be present in the folder.
None
When a schedule is enabled (next step), the recording of all data present in the
Archive folder will start when the schedule gets active. Any data added later
(even when the schedule is still running) will wait for the next schedule
activation. Without scheduling, the recording must be manually forced from the
main Perennity window.
Select “Next” to go to the “Schedule” tab.
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Schedule
Scheduling defines the timeframe during which recording may happen. So if the
schedule is only active between 19:00h and 06:00h the recording will not
happen during working hours, only at night (freeing the Rimage system for
other tasks at daytime). Whether data will be recorded or not depends entirely
upon the trigger values. Only when ‘None’ is the selected trigger, all data
present in the Archive folder at the beginning of the activation of the schedule
(e.g. every day at 19:00h) will be recorded unconditionally. Any data added
afterwards, even when the schedule is still active, will wait for the next
activation (e.g. the next day).
Fig. 39 – Activating the schedule
Clicking “Next” brings you to the Email notification window.
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Email notification
By activating the email notification functionality, one or multiple recipients can
receive an email in any of the following cases:
•
A job is completed
•
The Rimage Imaging server has generated an error
•
Connection problems with the Rimage Messaging server
•
Perennity errors
The only prerequisite to use email notification is to have access to a valid SMTP
server.
Fig. 40 Email notification configuration
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Enter a valid SMTP host (DNS or IP address) and the email address that
Perennity will use to send its emails. If the SMTP server requires authentication,
enter the login and password.
Add one or multiple email addresses. You can test the email functionality by
selecting one or more recipients and clicking on the “Test” button.
You may also define per user what kind of messages they should get: job
completion notifications, errors with Rimage Imaging/Messaging and/or
Perennity errors.
Database configuration
Clicking “Next” brings you to the database window. Enable the database if you
want to use it for the current Archive folder and configure it correctly (make
sure that your database setup is correct).
Fig. 41 – Perennity database configuration
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First select the type of database you want to use (SQL server type): MySQL or
Microsoft SQL Server. Since MSDE is a feature-limited version of SQL Server,
select SQLServer if you want to use MSDE. Please note that when we will talk
about SQL Server hereunder, this also refers to MSDE.
By ticking the “Index file content” option, Perennity will store all different
keywords of text documents (pdf, doc, xls, txt, xml and eml) in the Perennity
database. This will allow searching on the content of the files using the
Perennity Finder tool.
You can create a separate database per Archive folder or use the same database
for all Archive folders (which is not recommended if you want to use the Finder
AND security is an issue). When MySQL runs on the Perennity server enter user
name ‘user’ without a password, otherwise check with your database
administrator. Always check with your database administrator when using SQL
Server.
The Perennity database user must have the right to create a new database,
create tables, modify the structure and insert data.
By default, all local users can access all MySQL databases. Of course it is
possible to restrict access to specific authorized users.
When the “Dump database” checkbox is selected, Perennity makes an up-todate backup copy (including the current CD/DVD) of the complete MySQL
database on each media being produced. In this way there is no need to
manually backup the database, since the last produced media will always
contain the latest database contents. This option is not available for SQL Server
(backups must be performed by the database administrator).
Click on the “Check database” button. If the database configuration is correct,
you will have a message saying that the connection to the database was
successfully established.If the database does not exist, it will be created. If one
of the parameters is not valid, you will be warned.
Fig. 42 – Database configuration not correct
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Fig. 43 - Confirmation of database creation
Click on Yes. The structure will be modified without data loss. However, it is
highly recommended to backup the database prior to any update or
modification.
From now on, all archival operations for this archive folder will be logged into
the just configured MySQL or SQL Server database.
In case of a power failure or interruption of an archiving process of Perennity, it
is possible that the Perennity contains records related to files that have not be
burned to CD or DVD. You should then clean the database by clicking on the
“Clean database” button. It will remove all unnecessary records.
Your Perennity Multiple Archive folder is now ready to be used.
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CONFIGURING A CD/DVD IMAGE FOLDER
The CD/DVD Image folder type allows you to automatically record CD/DVD
physical images that have been premastered with third party applications. This
can be useful for image formats that are not supported on Windows platforms
(like HFS for Macintosh), or in cases where specific mastering applications (e.g.
for DVD Video) can directly output to a CD/DVD image. Two conditions are
required for Perennity to be able to record your CD/DVD image: a valid image
file and an XML file containing several instructions like the number of copies and
what needs to be printed on the CD or DVD. You can create this XML file
manually or through another application (see Appendix 1 for more information
about the structure of this file).
Source identification and general settings
Create a CD/DVD Image Folder by selecting “CD/DVD Image Folder” from the
Type drop-down list in the Source settings window.
Fig. 44 – CD/DVD Image Folder
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Each source must be given a distinctive name (max. 20 chars.) to clearly
identify it. The description field can be used to enter additional information.
The name of the source can only contain the following characters: A-Z, a-z, _
and -. Do not use other, special characters like é, è, &, … or spaces.
Sources can be in one of three different states: enabled, disabled or obsolete.
Use the drop-down arrow to alter the state. Unlike Rimage targets, multiple
sources can be enabled and thus active concurrently.
The scan interval determines how often Perennity will scan the Archive folder
to check if the trigger conditions are met. A low value will flag more rapidly,
but involves more processing; a high value will check less often but also
require less processing. When Perennity doesn’t run on a dedicated system
(for instance on a Rimage server, being used intensively for other purposes
too) it is advised to put a higher value here.
When selecting the “Automatically start” option, Perennity will start up the
Archive folder as soon as the Perennity application is launched. Otherwise,
you will need to start the processing manually.
Define the Image Folder path list
Click the “Next” button to continue.
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Fig. 45 – Select source path (UNC)
In this window you may enter one or more paths for this source. Perennity will
treat every path separately for processing, but the same rules will apply to all.
This means you don’t have to create multiple identically configured archive
folders, but just one with multiple paths. If you need different settings, you
need to create different CD/DVD Image folders.
Click on the “Add path” button and select a directory that will act as a Perennity
CD/DVD Image folder. Then confirm with “Choose directory” and the path will
appear in the path list. The number of paths you can add here is unlimited.
If Perennity runs on the same machine as the Rimage Software Suite
(Production, Imaging and Messaging servers), you may select local directories
(e.g. C:\Production logs\). You can then share these folders to the network,
which will make them accessible for users or applications to drop their image
files to be recorded.
If Perennity runs on another machine as the Rimage Software Suite or if your
Image folder is created on different systems (server or client workstations), you
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must always use UNC paths (browse through My Network Places). It is
mandatory that both Perennity and the Rimage Imaging server can access the
image files to be archived (with the logged on user account). Be sure to provide
read/write or full control access to the Perennity Archive folders and sub-folders.
Please make sure you have the necessary rights to access these shares before
trying to add them to your configuration, otherwise you will not be successful in
doing so.
When finished, click the “Next” button.
Output settings
Under the “Output settings” tab you find settings with respect to the label you
want to apply to your project.
Specify the correct default Label file for your type of equipment. This can be the
standard label template provided with Perennity, or a custom label template of
your own. Please consult appendix 4 if you want to find out how to make your
own personalized Perennity labels. Perennity will open the default label directory
it created at installation time, but you can also browse to another location to
choose a label. If Perennity is not installed on the Rimage Control Center, you
will need to use a UNC path to the label. Also make sure that the Rimage
Production Server can access and open the label file.
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Fig. 46 Fig – Output settings
Triggers
As discussed in the concepts section of this manual, Perennity supports three
triggering mechanism (capacity threshold, trigger file and folder latency). A
fourth special case is ‘None’, which behaviour depends on whether or not a
schedule is active. For more information please review the concepts section.
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Fig. 47 – Triggering events
Capacity threshold
Every time the threshold value (in MB) is reached, the recording process will
be started. Although this value can correspond with the actual (or usable)
media size, it doesn’t have to.
By default ‘always fill CD/DVD media’ is active, meaning that only the data
that completely fits on one or more media will be written out. Any additional
data that doesn’t yet fill up a complete media will not be included and will wait
for the next time the threshold capacity will be reached.
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Trigger file
Enter the name for the trigger file, that must be copied to the root of the
Archive folder to start its processing. Optionally you can add the trigger file to
the media. You may also specify a file extension as trigger (e.g. *.arc).
Folder latency
Specify a latency time in seconds. When a folder scan is performed and no more
changes are detected in the folder after applying the latency time, the recording
will start. You can however specify that a minimum number of files and/or a
minimum capacity must be present in the folder.
None
When a schedule is enabled (next step), the recording of all data present in the
Archive folder will start when the schedule gets active. Any data added later
(even when the schedule is still running) will wait for the next schedule
activation. Without scheduling, the recording must be manually forced from the
main Perennity window.
Select “Next” to go to the “Schedule” tab.
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Schedule
Scheduling defines the timeframe during which recording may happen. So if the
schedule is only active between 19:00h and 06:00h the recording will not
happen during working hours, only at night (freeing the Rimage system for
other tasks at daytime). Whether data will be recorded or not depends entirely
upon the trigger values. Only when ‘None’ is the selected trigger, all data
present in the Archive folder at the beginning of the activation of the schedule
(e.g. every day at 19:00h) will be recorded unconditionally. Any data added
afterwards, even when the schedule is still active, will wait for the next
activation (e.g. the next day).
Fig. 48 – Activating the schedule
Clicking “Next” brings you to the Email notification window.
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Email notification
By activating the email notification functionality, one or multiple recipients can
receive an email in any of the following cases:
•
A job is completed
•
The Rimage Imaging server has generated an error
•
Connection problems with the Rimage Messaging server
•
Perennity errors
The only prerequisite to use email notification is to have access to a valid SMTP
server.
Fig. 49 Email notification configuration
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Enter a valid SMTP host (DNS or IP address) and the email address that
Perennity will use to send its emails. If the SMTP server requires authentication,
enter the login and password.
Add one or multiple email addresses. You can test the email functionality by
selecting one or more recipients and clicking on the “Test” button.
You may also define per user what kind of messages they should get: job
completion notifications, errors with Rimage Imaging/Messaging and/or
Perennity errors.
Database configuration
Clicking “Next” brings you to the database window. Enable the database if you
want to use it for the current Archive folder and configure it correctly (make
sure that your database setup is correct).
Fig. 50 – Perennity database configuration
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First select the type of database you want to use (SQL server type): MySQL or
Microsoft SQL Server. Since MSDE is a feature-limited version of SQL Server,
select SQLServer if you want to use MSDE. Please note that when we will talk
about SQL Server hereunder, this also refers to MSDE.
By ticking the “Index file content” option, Perennity will store all different
keywords of text documents (pdf, doc, xls, txt, xml and eml) in the Perennity
database. This will allow searching on the content of the files using the
Perennity Finder tool.
You can create a separate database per Archive folder or use the same database
for all Archive folders (which is not recommended if you want to use the Finder
AND security is an issue). When MySQL runs on the Perennity server enter user
name ‘user’ without a password, otherwise check with your database
administrator. Always check with your database administrator when using SQL
Server.
The Perennity database user must have the right to create a new database,
create tables, modify the structure and insert data.
By default, all local users can access all MySQL databases. Of course it is
possible to restrict access to specific authorized users.
When the “Dump database” checkbox is selected, Perennity makes an up-todate backup copy (including the current CD/DVD) of the complete MySQL
database on each media being produced. In this way there is no need to
manually backup the database, since the last produced media will always
contain the latest database contents. This option is not available for SQL Server
(backups must be performed by the database administrator).
Click on the “Check database” button. If the database does not exist, it will be
created. If one of the parameters is not valid, you will be warned.
Fig. 51 - Database does not exist
Click on Yes.
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Fig. 52 - Confirmation of database creation
You may use existing databases that have been created with a previous version
of Perennity (version 1.7). When clicking on the “Check database” button,
Perennity will first check the structure of the selected database. If it needs to be
updated you will get the following message:
Fig. 53 Update database structure
Click on Yes. The structure will be modified without data loss. However, it is
highly recommended to backup the database prior to any update or
modification.
From now on, all archival operations for this archive folder will be logged into
the just configured MySQL or SQL Server database.
In case of a power failure or interruption of an archiving process of Perennity, it
is possible that the Perennity contains records related to files that have not be
burned to CD or DVD. You should then clean the database by clicking on the
“Clean database” button. It will remove all unnecessary records.
Your Perennity Image folder is now ready to be used.
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MAIN SETTINGS WINDOW
Once finished configuring your archive folder(s) (no matter the type) the main
settings window will reappear, giving an overview of sources with their type,
status and target.
Fig. 54 – Main settings window
You can now choose to create another archive folder (“Add”) or click on “Close”
when you’re done. When closing, you will be prompted about the service restart.
Click on ‘restart’ to restart immediately or click on ‘wait’ to delay the restart.
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Fig. 55 – Restart Service to apply new settings
After the installation, you may start configuring and using the Perennity Finder.
Launch it using the shortcut created in the Start menu.
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CONFIGURING PERENNITY FINDER
You may start configuring by launching it using the link in the menu ‘Tools’.
Fig. 56 – Settings tab of Perennity Finder
Select the “Settings” tab. Then select the type of database you want to connect
to (MySQL or SQL Server).
By default the Perennity Finder is configured for localhost on port 3306, which is
the default when using MySQL, installed on the Perennity machine. If your
environment is different (e.g. remote MySQL installation, different security
implementation…), please check with your database administrator to modify the
parameters accordingly.
Click on the “Check settings” button.
If one of the parameter is not correct, an error message will be displayed.
Fig. 57 Wrong database name
At the moment, only one database can be configured in the Perennity Finder.
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Using and monitoring Perennity
Once the basic configuration of Perennity is finished, the main window will show
up, with one or more Source tabs (one per source).
Fig. 58 – Perennity main window
Under the source tabs you find three window sections: Source, Logs and Target.
Their content is specific for the tab currently selected, except for the Logs
window that will also always shows all general Rimage messages.
SOURCE WINDOW
The Source window (top) content shows the archive folders containing at least
some data that is ready to be archived. Of course the actual archiving will only
happen when trigger conditions are met.
The Source window displays the following information:
Source: the path of the archive folder(s)
Files/Folders: the number of files and folders
Total size: the total size of the files and folders
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Status: between two scan intervals, the status is “Idle” which means that
Perennity wait until the next scan. A “Scanning” status means that Perennity
checks if the conditions (trigger) are met to start the recording process.
Perennity will then organize files by CD/DVD media (“Preparing files” status).
If files are larger than the capacity of the media and that you allow file splitting,
they will be split during the preparation of the files(“Splitting files”). If this
option has been selected, the checksum will be computed and information files
will be created (“Preparing job” status). Finally the recording jobs will be
prepared and submitted to the target device (“Waiting production” status).
Right-clicking a selected source permits to:
Force Scan of the archive folder: Perennity will not wait for the next scheduled
scan (defined by the scan interval) to perform.
Force Recording: Perennity will not wait for the trigger value to be met.
LOGS WINDOW
The Logs window (middle) reports status messages, errors or warnings with
respect to the Rimage system and job-specific log entries for the selected
archive folder. By double-clicking a log entry, it will open in a new window.
TARGET WINDOW
The Target window (bottom) shows the jobs currently being processed by the
Rimage or Epson autoloader for the selected archive folder tab with their status
and a progress bar.
The Target window displays the following information:
Source: the path of the archive folder(s).
Job: the volume name of the recorded media.
Status: Waiting, Imaging, Downloading, Recording, Printing or Completed. The
status is returned by the Rimage Messaging server or by the Epson TD-Bridge.
Progress: a progress bar
Copies: the number of completed copies and the total number of copies to be
processed.
Right-clicking a job with an error gives you the opportunity to “Retry media with
error(s)”. A job may have errors for several possible reasons: locked files,
corrupt files, Rimage server problems…
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START/STOP BUTTON
Select a tab and push the “Started” button to stop the processing for the
Archive folder, or push the “Stopped” button to start its processing. Whether a
folder will be in a started or stopped status when Perennity is launched depends
on the fact if “Automatically start” was selected in its source settings.
VIEW SOURCE SETTINGS
“View source settings” displays the settings (source, target, trigger, Rimage
settings…) for the currently selected archiving folder in read-only mode. If you
want to modify the settings, you can go to the “Tools” menu and select the
“Stop all operations” menu item. Then select the “Settings” option under the
same “Tools” menu. Alternatively, if you go to the “Tools” – “Settings” menu
while one or more archive folders are started, Perennity will ask you if the
modifications done must be applied immediately ,implying a restart of the
Perennity Service (automatically stopping all operations) or if you want to wait
until the current operations are finished. If you choose to wait, The new settings
will NOT be applied until the current jobs are finished and Perennity has
restarted its service.
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MAIN MENU
The Perennity main window also has 3 menu items: File, Tools and Help.
File menu
The “File” menu item has 3 options: “Force Recording”, “Restart Service” and
“Exit”. “Force Recording” will force the burning of the contents of the selected
archive folder to CD or DVD, even if its processing should normally not yet
happen based on the trigger values. Forcing the recording for a folder starts the
recording process immediately (a running scan is interrupted). “Restart Service”
will force Perennity to restart its Windows Service immediately. “Exit” shuts
down Perennity (after asking for confirmation).
Fig. 59 – Perennity File menu
Tools menu
The “Tools” menu gives access to the “Settings” window, which was discussed in
great detail in the configuration section. From here you can easily reconfigure
sources and targets by editing them (“Edit” button or double-click the source or
target), create new ones (“Add”) or remove them (“Remove”).
Fig. 60 – Perennity Tools menu
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Fig. 61 – Main settings window
The “Stop all operations” menu item has for effect to stop all the operations that
are currently processed by Perennity.
It is also possible to clear the log window (“Clear logs” menu item), which is the
window section located at the bottom of the main Perennity window.
The “Perennity Finder” opens the Perennity Finder interface, described in detail
in another chapter of this manual.
The “Data integrity check” launches a tool to check if files are corrupted or not
based on the checksum that has been computed for each file during the
archiving process. This tool is described later in this chapter.
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Help menu
Fig. 62 – Perennity Help menu
The Help menu gives access to the “Register” window, which permits you to
update your license. See the Licensing section for a complete description.
The “About” window shows the exact Perennity version and build number, a link
to our website and important email addresses for licensing and support.
Fig. 63 The “About” window
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DATA INTEGRITY CHECK TOOL
You can launch the Data integrity check tool from the “Tool” menu.
Insert the CD/DVD to be checked in your CD/DVD reader and enter its path. If
the CD/DVD is located in a library, you may also click on the browse button and
select the right location. Then click on the “Start” button.
Fig. 64 Select the source of data (e.g. your local CD/DVD reader)
The following window will show up.
Fig. 65 The Data integrity check window
Perennity will compute a CRC32 checksum for all files contained on the CD and
compare this value to the one that have been computed during the initial
recording and stored in the fileList.xml file located on the CD. If the latest
checksum value is different from the first, this means that the file is corrupted.
The list of corrupted files will appear in the window.
As soon as the check is finished, a popup window will show the results.
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Fig. 66 Checksum operation results
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PERENNITY AT WORK
Once Perennity is correctly configured and started up, processing happens
completely in the background. As files or CD/DVD images are written to the
archive folders, CD or DVD burning will gradually happen, as launched by the
respective trigger values. I will try to clarify this with a few examples:
In the following example, the archive folder \Production Logs. Logs gets over
the 650MB capacity threshold and a job is started for this folder. We can see in
the source status column that files are being prepared for production (other
possible statuses are idle and scanning).
Fig. 67 – \Production Logs >650MB
The job will get a different status (Rimage) depending on where it actually is in
the process:
Waiting: Rimage Messaging Server waits for one of the other servers
Imaging: Rimage Imaging Server is creating CD/DVD image
Downloading: the Production Server is downloading the image to cache
Recording: actual burning to the media
Printing: printing of the media
Completed: processing finished
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When finished, the job entry will be removed from the Target job window and a
message will be logged in the bottom (general log) window.
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The following screen shows a Multiple Archive folder, where every subfolder of
the ‘Projects’ folder is automatically considered to be a separate Archive folder.
The burning is triggered by the presence of a trigger file (e.g. start.go) in the
root of the Archive subfolder.
Fig. 68 – Multiple Archive folder
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The last example shows the processing of a CD/DVD Image folder, where one
CD/DVD image is getting recorded.
Fig. 69 – CD/DVD Image Folder
At any time you can manually start a production.
To do so, right-click on the folder you want to archive and select ‘Force
Recording’. This will open a pop-up letting select a few options.
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Fig. 70 – Manual submitting.
You can change the priority of the job: high, medium or low.
You can also change the number of copies you want to produce.
You might also select the media type (CD/DVD/Blu-Ray)
Fig. 71 – Media Selection.
If needed, you can also force to change the volume name.
By clicking on ‘More’ you will be able to access the advanced settings, which are
related to the label, the Merge file, and some personal fields that you would
want to add to your label.
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Fig. 72 – Media Selection.
To change the label, you must click on the browse button to open the default
label folder of Perennity. From there you are able to select any label you want.
Do the same manipulations to select the merge file you want to use.
You might also want to manually add fields to the merge file by clicking on the
‘Add’ button.
Fig. 73 – Adding fields.
The fields that you are manually adding will be automatically be inserted in our
database in order to be used again in the future.
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Fig. 74 – Fields added to the manual submitting configuration.
Once the whole configuration is done, click on ‘OK’ to submit the job accordingly
to the settings you manually created…
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Perennity Finder
Basically, there are two ways to consult the Perennity database to easily find
back your archived files:
Browsing the database: like in Windows Explorer, you can browse the directory
structure of your archive and find information on what CD/DVD the files you are
looking for are located.
Querying the database: based on a combination of one or more criteria (file
name, date…), you will get a result list of archived files matching these criteria.
BROWSING THE DATABASE
After selecting the “Browse” tab, you can start looking for your archived file(s)
by exploring the archive in the same way you browse the structure of a hard
disk or a CD. The highest-level folders correspond to the data sources (Archive
folders). This can be a local drives (C: in our example) or network computers.
You can continue to browse the archive structure either by opening subfolders
on the left side or the right side of the browser until you find the file(s) you are
looking for. When selecting a file, you get additional information at the bottom
of the window: the media volume name(s) and the original location of the
selected file.
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Fig. 75 – Browsing the Perennity archive database.
Click on the “Refresh sources” button in order to update the Data source
display.
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QUERYING THE DATABASE
If you want to search for archived files matching certain criteria without knowing
where they were stored in the Archive folder structure, you can use the Query
tool. Click on the “Query” tab. You can search on any of the following criteria:
file name, file size, file date, media ID, media volume name, Perennity Source
or Target name and source path. Different criteria can be combined using
Boolean “and” and “or” operators.
Fig. 76 – Querying the Perennity archive database
First select one of the criteria (e.g. File name), then an operator (e.g. contains).
Type a value in the empty box (e.g. PRD) and click on the “Add” button. You can
add more criteria and combine them using “and” and “or” operators. Finally,
click “Search” in order to get the list of all files matching your conditions. You
can also remove one your criteria by selecting it in the Criteria list and clicking
the “Remove” button. Clicking the “Clear all” button clears the complete list.
You will notice that the choice of available operators depends on the type of
information being searched on. We don’t discuss these options in detail here
since we think they should be self-explanatory.
The results from a query are presented in a tabular view, displaying all file
information: it’s original path, it’s alternate path (when the file was moved to
another destination after the archiving), the media volume name, file size and
date and its status (online when still accessible, otherwise offline).
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From the results list, you can select a single file and right-click it to open the file
or save it to disk. Alternatively double-clicking the file will also open it. Of
course these options are only interesting when the file is has not been deleted
from its original location or when it has been copied to an alternate destination
and is still accessible from there (in other words the file is still online).
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Technical support
Technical support is available from 9AM to 6PM (GMT +1).
Please find hereunder our full coordinates:
E.C. Intl sprl-bvba
136 avenue Firmin Lecharlierlaan
1090 Brussels (Belgium)
Phone: 32 (0)2/421.59.66
Fax: 32 (0)2:421.59.69
[email protected]
When sending an email to the support department, always attach the config.txt
files located in the Program Files/Perennity/Perennity Archive/Server/config/
folder. This helps us to recreate your environment.
http://www.perennitysoft.com
If you need a license key, please send an e-mail to [email protected]
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Appendix
APPENDIX 1 - XML SYNTAX FOR CD/DVD IMAGE FOLDERS
What follows is an example of the correct XML syntax to be used for the
CD/DVD Image job tickets. When you plan to generate the job tickets yourself
or through a custom application, you need to conform to this syntax for your
jobs to be processed properly.
<PerennityMac>
<Login>
Laurent
user name that will (optionally) printed
</Login>
<Image>
Project_X.img
name of the CD/DVD image
</Image>
<MediaType>
CDR
can be CDR or DVDR (if applicable)
</MediaType>
<NbCopiesRequested>
2
number of copies to be produced
</NbCopiesRequested>
<NbCopiesDone>
0
internal field, always put ‘0’ here
</NbCopiesDone>
<LabelPath>
nothing
‘default’ = default label)
name of the label (‘nothing’ = no label,
</LabelPath>
<MergeFilePath>
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nothing
merge file)
name of the merge file (nothing = no
</MergeFilePath>
<Status>
waiting
internal field, always put ‘waiting’ here
</Status>
<Date>
internal field, leave empty
</Date>
<LongDate>
internal field, leave empty
</LongDate>
<Percentage>
0
internal field, always put ‘0’ here
</Percentage>
<Comment>
internal field, don’t put a value in here
</Comment>
</PerennityMac>
Please note that all tags are required, even when empty. For the internal fields,
use the default values as stated. These fields will be dynamically updated during
Perennity processing, which gives you the opportunity to check on job status by
reading out these values through a custom application.
It is equally very important to put the tag values ‘waiting’, ‘nothing’, ‘default’ in
lowercase. Otherwise the processing will not run successfully.
All files (CD/DVD image, label file and merge file) should be copied to the Image
folder before submitting the job using the XML order. If the image file is not
present, Perennity will reject the XML order. If the label (and optionally the
merge file) is not present, Perennity will not start processing until it has been
copied over.
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APPENDIX 2 - XML SYNTAX OF TRIGGER FILE
When using an XML trigger file, you can overwrite default parameters of the
archive folder like the number of copies and the volume name. You may also
add some extra fields to be printed on the CD/DVD media.
Only the <Trigger> tag and the following tags will be taken into account :
<Copies>: specify the number of copies.
<VolumeName>: specify the volume name of the CD/DVD. According to ISO
and UDF rules, the volume name may not contain special characters (only A-Z,
a-z, 0-9, - and _).
<Field>: extra information to be printed on the CD/DVD and optionally stored
in the Perennity database. You may have an unlimited number of <Field> tags
in the <Fields> section. In order to get these extra fields printed on the
CD/DVD, you must modify the print label using CD Designer. Refer to the Label
Customization appendix for more information. If you want to store the value in
the Perennity database, you must manually add the parameter ‘dbColumn’ as it
is shown in the sample here below.
<Label>: specifies the CD Designer template that replaces the default one.
<Merge>: specifies the optional merge file coupled with the CD Designer
template.
You may add your own tags into the Trigger section. However, do not forget to
modify the triggerFileXml.dtd file accordingly.
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<Trigger>
<Copies>3</Copies>
<VolumeName>Perennity version 1.5</VolumeName>
<Fields>
<Field name="Field1" dbColumn="info1">value 1</Field>
<Field name="Field2" dbColumn="info2">value 2</Field>
...
</Fields>
<Label deleteAfterRecording="true">c:\mylabels\label.btw</Label>
<Merge>c:\mylabels\merge.txt</Merge>
</Trigger>
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APPENDIX 3 - PERENNITY DATABASE STRUCTURE
The Perennity database contains one table per source. Each table will contain
the following fields
Field
Type
Description
ID
int(11)
Primary key
file_path
varchar(255)
Complete file path including the file
name
source_name
varchar(50)
Perennity Source name
source_path
varchar(255)
Perennity Source path
source_alias
varchar(50)
Not used
file_Size
varchar(60)
File size in bytes
target_name
varchar(50)
Perennity Target name
date
timestamp(14)
Date/Time when the file has been
archived
media
varchar(50)
CD/DVD Media ID (printed on the
CD/DVD)
version
varchar(100)
Version of Perennity
type
varchar(50)
Not used
volume_name
varchar(100)
Volume name of the CD/DVD
comment
varchar(50)
Not used
checksum
varchar(100)
File checksum
alerternate_Path
varchar(250)
Path of the file where it has been
copied to after the archiving
process
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status
char(1)
The default value is 1. When the
target device reports that the
archiving operation has been
successful, the status is set to 0.
terms
longtext
Keywords extracted from the fulltext indexing engine.
Last_modified_date
Varchar(100)
Last time the file was changed.
Used in Incremental mode.
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APPENDIX 4 – LABEL CUSTOMIZATION
Perennity installs a custom label per printer type. There is one for the Everest,
the Prism, the 480i printers, and for the Epson PP-100. It looks like this:
Fig. 77 A CD printed by Perennity
The default template displays the following information:
•
The name of the Archive folder (e.g. FM Brussels)
•
The name of the parent sub-directory (e.g. Compliance)
•
The path of the Archive folder (e.g. I:\Compliance)
•
The volume name (e.g. FM_003)
•
The media ID (e.g. #003)
•
The date/time of the recording process
•
The copy ID (e.g. Original)
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The default layout can be modified using CD Designer. You may add your logo,
some fixed text or custom elements.
Never delete one of the predefined fields. If you do not want to print one, move
it outside to the printing zone of the CD/DVD or switch the color to white.
When using XML trigger files, you can add some more fields.
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APPENDIX 5 – INSTALLING AND USING MYSQL GUI TOOLS
The MySQL GUI Tools can help you to check your Perennity database installation
and its functioning. Thanks to this utility, you will be able to view all records,
fields and data contained in the Perennity database.
The MySQL GUI Tools is available in the Perennity installation package (CD or
zip file). Go to Tools\MySQL v5 and Tools\MySQL GUI Tools Bundle v5.0.12 and
run the mysql-gui-tools-5.0-r12-win32.msi program.
Fig. 78 Welcome screen.
Click on Next.
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Fig. 79 License agreement.
Select “I accept the license agreement” and click Next.
Click on Next.
Fig. 80 Select the installation folder.
Click on Next.
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Fig. 81 Select Complete installation..
Select the Complete installation of MySQL GUI Tools.
Click on Next.
Fig. 82 Confirm the installation of MySQL GUI Tools.
Click on Next.
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After the installation process, you have to click twice on Next to skip some
advertising about MySQL.
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Fig. 83 MySQL Control Center has been successfully installed.
The installation of the MySQL GUI Tools is now finished.
You can launch the utility MySQL Administrator unsing the shortcut created in
the Start menu during the installation.
Fig. 84 – MySQL Administrator – Connecting window.
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Each time you will start the MySQL Administrator, you will be prompted to enter
some connection parameters such as hostname, port, username and password
(default is localhost on port 3306, user ‘root’ with no password).
Host Name: if the MySQL engine runs on the same machine as the MySQL
Administrator, type “localhost” as Host name. Otherwise, when accessing a
remote database, specify the IP address or DNS name of the computer running
the MySQL engine.
User Name: “root” is the default MySQL Administrator account created during
the MySQL installation. When logged on as root, you can define additional users
and change your MySQL login account later on.
Password: by default the “root” user does not have a password defined. Leave
this field blank. If you wish, you can assign a password to the root account later
on.
Port: the default IP Port used by MySQL is 3306. You should not change this
value.
Click on OK.
Fig. 85 – MySQL Adminsitrator main window.
The main window gives an overview of the Database and of the PC hosting the
database.
Click on Catalags in the left column.
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The “Perennity” database should appear in the list. The “test” and “mysql”
databases have been created during the MySQL installation and you should keep
them.
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Fig. 86 – Perennity database and its tables.
Click on the “Perennity” database icon. Its structure will appear in the right
section of the MySQL Adminsitrator window.
Perennity uses one table per source. All information related to the archived files
of a source is contained in its table.
See Appendix 3 for more explanations about the structure of the Perennity
archive table.
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Fig. 87 – View the structure of the “archive” table of the Perennity database.
Double-click on a table in order to display its content. At this time, it will
obviously be empty.
You can also use the Query Browser tool that has been installed with the MySQL
GUI tools package to browse your tables with SQL instructions.
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Fig. 88 – Display the “archive_productionlogs” table content.
The MySQL GUI Tool is a free tool and it can be installed on an unlimited
number of computers. Unfortunately, there is no user manual so far. However,
users who are familiar with database management should not have any
difficulty in using this tool.
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APPENDIX 6 – INSTALLING AND USING EPSON TD-BRIDGE
The TD-Bridge module is required if you want to use Epson PP-100 or PP-100N
autoloader with Perennity Archive.
The first requirement is to have installed Epson Total Disc Maker software. This
program allows the general use of the PP-100(N). TD-Bridge will be the link
between Perennity Archive (giving production orders) and Total Disc Maker
(dealing with the robot itself). Please refer to your Epson manual for the
installation of Total Disc Maker.
To install TD-Bridge, you can find it on your Perennity Installation CD (go to
Tools -> EPSON TD Bridge Ver. 2.00 -> setup). Then you have to start the
setup.exe program.
Fig. 89 Welcome screen.
Click on Next.
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Fig. 90 License agreement.
Select “I accept the terms of the license agreement” and click Next.
Click on Next.
Fig. 91 Select the installation folder.
Click on Next.
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Fig. 92 Select the Monitoring Folder.
Preferably let the Monitoring folder to default
(systemdrive\EPSON\TDBidge\Orders)
Click on Next.
Fig. 93 Start the installation.
Click on Install.
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Fig. 94 Epson TD-Bridge has been successfully installed.
The installation of the Epson TD-Bridge is now finished.
Select ‘Starts EPSON TD Bridge’.
Fig. 95 – TD-Bridge tray Icon.
Double click on the tray icon to open the TD-Bridge configuration menu.
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Fig. 96 – TD-Bridge Configuration.
In the configuration screen, you are able to change the monitoring folder, define
the output device and some other parameters.
We strongly recommend to let the Monitoring folder to its default path.
Regarding the output device, the dropdown list will allow you to select the
device you want to use among all the Epson devices defined in Total Disc Maker.
(Default is PP-100).
Fig. 97 – Selecting the output device.
The default output location will be adapted to the settings defined in Total Disc
Maker for the selected output device.
Another important setting to define is to make TD-Bridge start automatically
when logging on.
Fig. 98 – Start TD Bridge automatically.
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After having modified the requested settings, click on OK.
Fig. 99 – Applying settings.
To apply the settings, you have to restart your computer.
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APPENDIX 7 – RELEASE NOTES
Perennity Archive (version 3.00)
Current version: 3.00 Build 286
Release date: September 15, 2010
Performance improvement
The program core has been rewritten from the ground to dramatically improve
its stability and performance, especially when working with very large number
(millions) of small files. Additionally, a better memory management ensures that
memory is freed up when not needed anymore.
Windows Services
Perennity Archive now executes as two windows services:
•
Perennity Archive Service: the core of the program is running as a
service, which means that the user interface application (GUI) does not
have to remain opened at all times.
•
Perennity Autoloader Server: this service deals with interfacing to
supported autoloaders. Using this framework, any changes in
Autoloaders APIs have no influence on the Perennity Archive core
functionality.
The program also runs without a user being logged on.
Incremental archiving improvement
Incremental archiving works differently than before. Where Perennity made use
of the archive bit in the past to defect file changes, now it uses the database
(which is thus obligatory with incremental archiving) and considers the last
modification date. This is both more reliable and much faster for large file
quantities.
Encryption
Perennity Archive Edition now offers an optional AES-256 data encryption
feature (only available with Rimage autoloaders). This encryption is one of the
most efficient ways to protect your data.
Database improvement
Perennity Archive now uses a dedicated table per source.
Support of Epson Autoloader
The Epson PP-100 and PP-100N autoloaders are now supported by Perennity.
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